ISO 9001 as IP

[Hubert B]

Hi All

I have 2 companies that do essentially the same thing in two different countries. Very much the same processes in each. I am considering going for ISO 9001 certification in one or both. If I get certification in one company can that company charge a fee to the other company to either a) use the documentation to get its own certification, or b) "tap into" the certification of the first company.

I guess I can license the copyright of the docs from one co to the other? What about productising the certification after we have it for one co and selling it to the other co?

The objective is both to get effective certification for both companies and also to transfer fees from one to the other.

Any thoughts?

Cheers

HB

 

[Hubert B]

Second question. Why is that first question attracting so few answers??

 

[Mike Allcott]

Bizarre. I work in this field every day of the week and I have no idea what you are talking about.

 

[Hubert B]

What so is hard to understand? Is it possible to treat ISO 9001 certification as IP? Can it be productised or licensed?

 

[DontAsk]

Why would you even think it is?

 

[Mike Allcott]

Why would you want to do that? ISO standards copyright is owned by the International Standards Organisation, who publish them. How would you productise it and who would you license it to? You can set yourself up as a CB (certification body) to assess companies for registration, there's lots of guys doing that. I can't see how a compliant ISO 9001 quality management system is any sort of product or intellectual property. There's an infinite number of ways to define and design processes to be complaint. I still don't understand what exactly you're trying to achieve here. Are you sure you know how the registration process works?

 

[Hubert B]

Not speaking about the copyright in the standard. Also not considering becoming a certification body.

My question is: How can two companies that have the same processes and are minded to co-operate share a QMS & ISO9001 certification.

The copyright in the quality manual would be owned by whichever company writes it. It should be possible, for example, to license the manual to the second company. In the simplest case I could do that and then each company could apply for certification based on the same QMS.

Is there a more effective solution?

Can one co write quality manual and apply for certification, operate its QMS for itself and also operate its QMS as a service for the other company?

 

[DontAsk]

You can share systems and documentation with whoever and however you like.

What you cannot do (which is what you asked) is "productising the certification after we have it for one co and selling it to the other co".

Each company must attain it's own certification. Having common processes should make things easier so long as you use the same CB. Do not expect two different CBs to give the same verdict on any particular QMS

 

[Hubert B]

How about group companies. Do they really get individual certification for each company in the group?

 

[DontAsk]

How about group companies. Do they really get individual certification for each company in the group?

So do you have a group, e.g., a holding company with subsidiaries or, as you stated, two companies. You 'll get a better answer, quicker, if you phrase the question better and don't drio feed things like this.

Group companies do what suits them. If they want a single cert then each individual operation will still need to be examined.

 

[Mike Allcott]

To be honest Hubert, yes, do whatever you like. I'm past caring.

 

[Hubert B]

Mike. I don't understand your attitude. I can't imagine that in the globalized world that questions like this do not come up relatively frequently.

 

[Chris Ashdown]

I used to be a freelance hydrographic surveyor and worked with two companies in particular both being ISO 9001

Working on the ships we had to work to procedures written down in the ISO folder made for each firm, but surprisingly different approaches to the procedures

In firm A they had about four pages on setting up a theodolite with step by step procedures from levelling it to taking readings on each specific theodolite they owned and this was the same throughout the whole 20 books of procedures we had onboard and had to follow

Firm B had Using a Theodolite, Theodolites should only be used by a fully trained surveyor. and about 2 books

Both met the same standard but one tried to micro manage the whole thing and probably written by a outside person working on a hourly rate, whilst the other was a expert in their field and only elaborated on procedures when it was really required

Does not answer your question , but assume that whilst you can give the other firm a copy of your procedures, for them to qualify on their own they would need to qualify following all the procedures, which i guess would be using them as a helpful template but subject to change to meet their needs

On the other hand if in a group then the whole group could be covered by one qualifying action but it would normally be a massive undertaking to change separate procedures in all the companies to the same standards and very expensive

 

[Hubert B]

Thanks Chris. In my case both companies do virtually the same activities so it should be directly transferable.